Warframe Survival Revisited - Is it time to update the old?

[Flannoit]

With the addition of Kullervo, Dagath, and Qorvex, we're approaching an era where frames have both really high HP and decent shields while still having anywhere from average to spectacular armor. This places Dagath roughly in the middle at ~1443 effective hp (which will be shortened to ehp from now on), while Kullervo (who I may sometimes refer to as Klorbo because I'm too used to writing that instead) with ~3815 ehp and Qorvex with ~3341 ehp are a lot higher on the rung compared to most other frames.

With Klorbo, I wasn't expecting any major changes to warframe health or anything, as high HP and good armor is pretty standard for a health frame. Dagath, however, with her max HP starting at 666 made me wonder if there was going to be a rework to HP values for older frames down the line.

Qorvex, with his monstrous 700 HP and 875 armor (which is the highest in the game, currently!) while still getting only slightly below average shields (300 where the average is 370), on the other hand makes me really curious if one's going to happen or not. Obviously, one has yet to happen, but I am hoping for one eventually.

Obviously not every frame needs its Health/Armor/Shields revisited and it'll definitely be kind of touch and go, but just for some comparison, here's a few frames using Umbral Fiber, Intensify, and Vitality with Primed Redirection:

(Average Health is 370, Shields is 370, Armor is 135)
(Let me also preface this by me outright blanket stating - I am not saying every single frame needs a self-heal, damage reduction, or death defy. These are just being taken into account as part of a frame's kit and up to your interpretation on whether or not that justifies the HP/Shields/Armor to you)

Sustain = Ability to heal themselves either by directly impacting HP, providing HP-related buffs, generating Health Orbs, or generating Overguard or shields.
Damage Reduction = Ability to reduce incoming damage by a certain amount, regardless if it's to all or only a few sources. (ex. Kinetic Plating) Overguard and Shields do not count for Damage Reduction because these are not unique to the tenno.
Death Defy = Ability to shrug off what would have been counted as a death demanding a revival else mission failure. (ex. Wukong's Techniques passive)

• Excalibur Umbra - Base Health of 370, base Shields of 370, base Armor of 315, Effective HP of 1252
  • Modded Health of 1036, Shields 1036, and Armor 882, Effective HP 5463
  • Base Frame released 10/2012
    • Average HP, average shields, above average armor, no sustain or damage reduction or death defy
• Nidus Prime - Base Health of 650, base Shields of 0, base Armor of 525, Effective HP of 1788
  • Modded Health of 1820, Shields 0, Armor 1470, Effective HP 10738
  • Base Frame released 12/2016
    • Greatly above average HP, no shields, greatly above average armor, no damage reduction secondary-resource locked sustain but has death defy
• Gauss Prime - Base Health of 370, Shields of 650, Armor of 185, Effective HP of 1465
  • Modded Health of 1036, Shields 1820, Armor 518, Effective HP 5251
  • Base Frame released 8/2019
    • Average HP, Greatly above average shields, slightly above average armor, has a damage reduction but no sustain or death defy
• Yareli - Base Health of 370, Shields of 555, Armor of 105, Effective HP of 1240
  • Modded Health of 1036, Shields 1554, Armor 294, Effective HP of 4123
  • Base Frame released 7/2021
    • Average HP, above average shields, below average armor, has a damage reduction but no sustain or death defy
• Citrine - Base Health of 500, Shields of 370, Armor of 265, Effective HP of 1435
  • Modded Health of 1400, Shields 1036, Armor 742, Effective HP 6244
  • Base Frame released 2/2023
    • Above average HP, average shields, above average armor, has a damage reduction and a sustain, but no death defy
• Kullervo - Base Health of 1205, Shields of 0, Armor of 650, Effective HP of  3816
  • Modded Health of 3374, Shields 0, Armor 1820, Effective HP 23843
  • Base Frame released 6/2023
    • Drastically above average HP, no shields, drastically above average armor, has a sustain, but otherwise no damage reduction or death defy
• Dagath - Base Health of 666, Shields of 250, Armor of 125, Effective HP of 1277
  • Modded Health of 1564, Shields 700, Armor 350, Effective HP 4974
  • Base Frame released 10/2023
    • Greatly above average HP, slightly below average shields, slightly below average armor, no sustain or damage reduction but has a death defy
• Qorvex - Base Health of 700, Shields of 300, Armor of 875, Effective HP of 3142
  • Modded Health of 1960, Shields 840, Armor 2450, Effective HP 19087
  • Base Frame released 12/2023
    • Greatly above average HP, slightly below average Shields, drastically above average armor, no sustain or damage reduction or death defy

Admittedly the more I kept working on this, the less I started to care, but ultimately this is just me prodding at DE to see if we're going to be getting changes to Warframe HP like we did with Armor a while back. (Shoutout to when the lowest armor a frame had was 0 and ~30 armor was the average)

Also just keeping this here because it's also just interesting to me to compare the different warframes throughout time even after what have been considered at-the-time buffs.

Any frames in particular you'd like for them to revisit the survivability of?

Edited January 27 by Flannoit